Please plan to join us for the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Aiken Land Conservancy. You'll hear about the Conservancy's 2009 accomplishments as well as the ALC's plans for the future.

This year's meeting will be held at the Clubhouse of Three Runs Plantation, located at the intersection of Banks Mill and White Pond Roads. Click HERE for a printable PDF map to the Annual Meeting location.

The ALC is pleased to have Rudy Mancke as the featured speaker at this year’s annual meeting. Rudy has been described as “South Carolina’s most famous contemporary naturalist” with good reason. Few people have the knowledge, or the enthusiasm, to hold an audience’s interest on the larval food plant of a butterfly one minute and the uplift of a mountain range the next. A Spartanburg native, before Rudy graduated from Wofford College his passion for all things natural was obvious, whether it involved catching queen snakes in his neighborhood lake or marveling at metamorphic rock in the Appalachian foothills. His time as a Medic in the Army stationed in Germany gave him time to bone up on anatomy, and graduate work at USC—coupled with his insatiable thirst to learn more natural history—prepared him well for his future as an educator. He taught a variety of ecological studies at Spartanburg High School for three years before the opportunity of a lifetime (that is, aside from marrying his wife Ellen) presented itself in 1975—being named the first Curator of Natural History at the newly forming SC State Museum in Columbia.

Fortunately for all of us who love natural history, Rudy had some great neighbors in his museum neighborhood in the form of SC Educational Television. Rudy and SCETV teamed up to make NatureScene, the wildly popular public television series that highlighted natural areas of interest and beauty for more than 20 years. Rudy’s accomplishments and accolades are too numerous to list here (so come to his talk!). He founded the South Carolina Association of Naturalists (SCAN), was distinguished lecturer in Natural History at the USC School of the Environment (retired 2008, currently adjunct faculty), hosts public radio’s daily Nature Notes, has been awarded six honorary doctorates, served as SCETV’s Director of Science and Nature Programming, and has received numerous state and national educational and conservation awards. Please join Rudy as he shares with us the values we all can learn from the natural world. Click HERE to view Rudy's resume.